CBS will pull the plug on late-night comedian Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” next year in a “purely financial decision,” the network announced on Thursday.

Colbert’s late-night comedy news show will air its final episode in May 2026, according to a statement released by CBS. The announcement marked the end of a nearly 11-year run Colbert has had hosting “The Late Show,” which first began in 1993 under former host David Letterman.

The network said that it is scrapping “The Late Show” franchise and will not move on to another host after Colbert.

“We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire ‘THE LATE SHOW’ franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television,” CBS said in a statement.

“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” it continued.

Colbert announced the news from his host chair at the top of his Thursday episode.

“I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” Colbert said.

Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who was a guest on Colbert’s program on Thursday night, suggested on social media that the cancelation of “The Late Show” may be about more than purely “financial reasons.”

“Just finished taping with Stephen Colbert who announced his show was cancelled. If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,” Schiff said in a post on X.

Just finished taping with Stephen Colbert who announced his show was cancelled.

If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.

— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) July 17, 2025

The end of “The Late Show” comes as late-night comedy programming has seen a severe decline in recent years. Colbert’s show has seen a significant decline.

CBS saluted Colbert in its statement announcing an end to “The Late Show” after more than three decades.

“The show has been #1 in late night for nine straight seasons; Stephen’s comedy resonates daily across digital and social media; and the broadcast is a staple of the nation’s zeitgeist,” said CBS. “The accomplishments of ‘THE LATE SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT’ are memorable and significant in performance, quality and stature. With much gratitude, we look forward to honoring Stephen and celebrating the show over the next 10 months alongside its millions of fans and viewers.”

President Donald Trump’s energy dominance agenda could raise the United States GDP by up to 1.9% within the next decade, according to a new report.

The White House Council of Economic Advisors released a report on the impact of Trump’s energy policies and deregulation on Thursday. Experts estimated that additional energy production alongside deregulatory policies could bolster economic growth in the United States, growing GDP “by at least 0.56-1.90 percent by 2035.”

“Unleashing energy abundance was key to the historic job, wage, economic, and investment growth that President Trump delivered during his first term,” White House spoeksman Kush Desai told The Daily Wire in a statement. “Energy abundance is again key for President Trump’s second term push to cement America’s dominance in AI and restore our industrial base, and the Administration is committed to pulling every stop to power the restoration of American Greatness.”

The report identified a few key weak points in the United States’ current energy production and distribution system, such as long delays for government approvals, aging infrastructure, and supply chains for critical minerals that run through “unreliable or adversarial sources.” But the United States sits upon a wealth of natural resources that contributed to the country being the “world’s leading producer of petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear power” in 2023.

Earlier this month, a Department of Energy report estimated that blackouts across the United States “could increase by 100 times in 2030 if the U.S. continues to shutter reliable power sources and fails to add additional firm capacity.”

The Trump administration wants to accelerate U.S. energy production in part because the country’s budding AI industry uses massive amounts of electricity.

“By some estimates, executing a ChatGPT prompt can be 10 times more energy intensive than a Google search,” the report states.

By 2030, AI data processing centers in the United States will use more electricity than the “production of aluminum, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined,” according to the International Energy Agency.

With AI development could come meaningful increases in production.

“If half of U.S. businesses engage in widespread use of AI by 2034, the annual productivity growth of labor could be 1.5 percentage points higher starting in 2034 than it would otherwise be without widespread AI adoption. This boost in labor productivity could, in turn, increase GDP growth by 0.4 percent in 2034,” the report states.

The surging demand for electricity by AI data centers could lead to price spikes for energy consumers. In order to prevent that, the report states that the United States needs to build out energy production from relatively inexpensive, reliable sources, such as natural gas.

“[C]ombined-cycle natural gas power plants are currently the lowest-cost reliable power generation option in the U.S., with a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of about $30 per megawatt-hour,” the report states. The price for energy output from natural gas is much lower than renewables, which the report priced at “$45-$55 per MWh” because of the additional cost of building batteries to ensure reliable energy when solar panels and wind turbines are not able to generate electricity.

The Trump administration is also slowing the retirement of nuclear and coal plants to avoid large gaps in electrical production from lost sources. Other plants, such as Michigan’s Palisades nuclear power plant, may be revived and put back into the U.S. electrical grid.

In addition to protecting, reviving, and building energy production, the administration is also working through a slew of deregulatory plans to streamline government approvals and encourage quicker energy development, including reforms to landmark environmental regulations such as the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.